


Lovers and Other Strangers

by PR Zed (przed)



Series: Das Vadanya Tovarishch [6]
Category: Man From U.N.C.L.E.
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-07
Updated: 2012-08-07
Packaged: 2017-11-11 14:51:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/479677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/przed/pseuds/PR%20Zed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After one loss too many, Napoleon seeks out the one person who can help him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lovers and Other Strangers

_May, 1982_

Napoleon Solo closed his eyes and let the paper in his hand drift silently to the desk. The report it bore may have been written in the dry language of Command bureaucracy, but he could translate those cold, hard words and read the story behind them: a story of blood and violence, of grief and loss. One of his agents had been brutally killed by Thrush while on a routine assignment, and her partner had been left to cope with the senseless death.

He leaned back in his chair and tried to find some meaning in the day's events. The attempt was a vain one. There was no message to be found in Chris Spicer's death, only stupidity and waste.

Napoleon was sick of waste. He was sick of sending young men and women out on assignments, never knowing when they would find death instead of triumph. He was sick of fighting an enemy that never seemed to weaken, never seemed to lack for recruits. He was sick of telling wives and husbands that their spouses were dead, of being the bearer of bad news for friends and family. He was sick of doing all of that and still maintaining the patented Napoleon Solo front that told everyone that he was in charge, in control and would not be shaken, no matter what the cause. He wanted to be free to yell and rail and create a scene.

Before he knew it, he was on his feet, raking his arm across the desk. Files and folders went flying. A crystal paperweight tumbled to the ground and cracked. Pens skittered across the hardwood and his phone hit the floor with a clattering ring.

He stood, looking at the destruction he had wrought, the dial tone emanating from the phone only gradually penetrating the fog the surrounded him. A beep caught his attention, and he looked over to see that his intercom had somehow, miraculously, remained on his desk.

"Mr. Solo, are you okay?" The voice of his assistant, Elaine, was hesitant. He knew he should feel sorry for the poor girl--she'd only taken over the job of being his minder recently, when Lisa Rogers had followed her agent husband to the West coast--but he couldn't quite manage sympathy at the moment.

"I'm fine," he barked, and then clicked off the intercom with a snap.

He was, however, definitely not fine. He felt his strength give out and slipped to the floor as his legs gave way under him. He sat, his back against the desk, and wondered how long he could carry on, how long he could continue to do this job without it consuming him completely. He wondered how Waverly had lived with it for all those years, shouldering the responsibility of running the organization, facing the deaths of colleagues and subordinates alike.

But then, Waverly had not been entirely alone. Not like Napoleon. At the end of every day, no matter how long, Alexander Waverly had gone home to his wife. Irene was a lovely lady, and Napoleon was only too aware of how she had kept his mentor sane, giving him the stability that his job could not. 

The end of the day for Napoleon, at least on the days when he made it further than the U.N.C.L.E. courtesy suite or the couch in his office, meant returning to an empty penthouse and an empty bed. It had been months since he had indulged in even a one-night stand. The hours he kept made it almost impossible to maintain any social life, and he'd lost the taste for casual sex of any stripe. The thought of a longer relationship was an impossible one. He'd loved that strongly twice in his life, and twice he'd lost everything. His wife had died and Illya had gone. He shrank from risking such a loss a third time.

He bowed his head and squeezed his eyes shut, trying to find the strength to carry on. But there was no mystical regeneration, no bolt of lightening, no sudden enlightenment. He simply continued to breathe, continued to live, in spite of the pain. He opened his eyes, finally taking in the shambles he had made of his office.

Pride would not allow that anyone else see the room in this state. Even if he knew that the show of strength he maintained at the office was all a sham, he couldn't afford to reveal that to others. Standing, he brushed the dust from his trousers and began cleaning up the mess he'd created.

The first piece of paper that came to his hand was the resignation of the head of the Research department. Derek Conroy had decided to take a university teaching position and the slightly more regular hours of academia. In spite of the turmoil that still wound through his gut, Napoleon noted that he would need to start a search for his replacement.

And just like that, he could see a way out. He knew how to restore the lost part of himself, knew how to get Illya back.

He picked the phone up off the floor and made the first call that would achieve his salvation. 

* * *

End of term.

Exam papers lay scattered on every available surface of the cozy dining room. At the centre of the chaos, the room's owner sat, hunched over the table, calculating the grade of yet another of his students.

The grade recorded, Illya Kuryakin tossed the paper onto the stack of completed exams and stretched, easing the kinks that had developed in his back from long hours of sitting in this room. One thing he was sure of, next year he would do anything necessary to avoid teaching the first year physics course.

He looked at the papers surrounding him and was pleased to note that in spite of the mess, he was nearly finished. Ten more exams to mark and he would be done and his own summer vacation could start.

Not that he knew what he was going to do with himself.

He supposed he could use the time to do his own research. He really should try to publish more, even if he already had tenure. Or he could travel, maybe visit Europe again. Or he could stay here, in Madison and paint the house like the good American homeowner that he was.

Somehow, though, none of that appealed. It was as if nothing he did really mattered anymore. Hadn't for years.

It hadn't always been that way. There had been a time when his actions had mattered, when there had been people he had cared about deeply. One other person in particular. But that had been a lifetime ago, a time he didn't allow himself to think of anymore.

Now his life was much simpler. He was a university professor at a good school. He would never win the Nobel Prize, but he did enough original research to satisfy his own ambitions. His students mostly liked him. The other faculty mostly respected him. He was still somewhat shocked that he owned a house. He had finally taken that step three years ago when he had finally accepted that his new life was not a temporary situation. There was nothing wanting in his life.

Except someone to share it with.

He killed that last thought immediately. It was dangerous to want that.

It wasn't as if he didn't have friends. A member of the History faculty was also from Russia. They had coffee together regularly, and once a term they'd get spectacularly drunk on Stolichnaya. Those drinking sessions usually devolved into weepy reminisces about their homeland.

Not that Russia was the homeland that he truly missed.

Fortunately, he still had some contact with people from that other homeland, New York. And U.N.C.L.E.

April Dancer was a regular visitor. She and Mark worked permanently out of London now, but she still managed the trip out here every few months. It was she who kept him up on all the gossip from New York and the Command. Since his injury, Mark Slate was a less frequent guest, but did manage to visit at least once a year. He was glad to see them both.

But from the one person that he most wanted to hear from, that he most feared to hear from, there was nothing but silence.

Which was all for the best, really.

He bent back to his task.

* * *

Several hours later, he finished the last paper, and threw it onto a pile with its companions. He stood and sighed as he popped the vertebrae in his neck and spine. 

He was getting ridiculously old. He would turn fifty later in the year. There had been a time when he had not expected to reach thirty, let alone fifty. Given his current lifestyle, he was going to live to a ripe old age.

It was somehow a depressing thought.

He went into the kitchen and pulled a bottle of vodka out of the freezer. It wasn't Stolichnaya -- that he saved for special occasions -- but it would do for this night. He poured himself a generous glassful and adjourned to the living room.

He sat on his couch, only a single table lamp breaking the gloom of the early evening. Drinking deeply from the glass in his hand, he tried very hard to think of nothing. It was a futile attempt. His ghosts could not be banished on this warm spring night. 

Still, he had to try.

He stared out the back window, trying very hard to concentrate only on how the shadows looked in his backyard, trying to distinguish the shape of the lilac from that of the flowering crab, watching the occasional cat flit across the garden.

It was something of a shock when the bell rang at his front door.

He started slightly at the sound, frowning. He wasn't expecting April for another month or so, and there was no one he could think of who would visit him at this hour. It must be one of the neighbours' children, selling newspapers or raising money for a class trip.

He decided to ignore his unwelcome visitor. Surely they would go away in a minute.

The bell rang again. And again, each time held a little longer.

"All right, I'm coming." Illya knew he sounded short and he didn't care. He may not enjoy the ghosts who were keeping him company tonight, but the living were no better.

He reached his foyer and flicked on the porch light.

"What do you...?" he opened the front door, a little harder than necessary.

And froze, the sentence uncompleted.

Napoleon Solo stood on his front step.

He remained still, uncertain what to say, what he could say. Solo seemed equally unsure of himself, shifting from foot to foot where he stood.

It was Solo who spoke first.

"Aren't you going to ask me in, Illya?"

The words spurred him into action. He opened the screen door and held it for his guest.

"Of course. Please come in."

"Thank you." Solo walked inside, brushing past Illya and then standing in the foyer, looking awkward. He couldn't remember Solo ever looking awkward before. It was disconcerting.

He gestured forward with one hand.

"The living room is just to the left. Sit down."

Solo took a seat on the couch.

"Would you like a drink?" He still wasn't thinking properly, but he could always count on Slavic courtesy to take over.

"Is that vodka?" Solo pointed to the glass on the coffee table.

"Yes."

"I'll have one as well."

Illya was grateful for the excuse to leave the living room for even a short time. His thoughts had been frozen when he first saw Napoleon. Now they were going too fast for him to control.

Why had Napoleon had to come, tonight of all nights? Why had he arrived at a time when Illya was feeling so vulnerable?

But he had to admit to himself that such times were occurring more frequently now than they had even when he had first moved here. There would have been no good time for this encounter.

He returned to the living room and handed Napoleon his glass of vodka. He picked up his own glass, but instead of resuming his previous spot on the couch, he sat in the armchair, a safe distance away from Solo.

They sat in awkward silence for a time, both concentrating on their drinks but consuming little. Illya tried unsuccessfully to rein in his thoughts

Questions tumbled through his mind. Why was Napoleon here? Why now? What had possessed him to seek out his ex-partner, a man he must surely hate? What was going on?

He couldn't ask those questions, but he could ask others.

"How long have you known where I was?"

"Seven years. Since Alexander died. Part of his bequest to me was your file." Solo paused, and filled the gap of silence by riffling through a book on the coffee table. "I had hoped you would come to the funeral."

"I did." Napoleon jolted with surprise at that. Illya continued. "Incognito, of course. And I didn't stay long. But I had to say my good byes."

"Why didn't you tell me you were there?" The hurt in Napoleon's voice was palpable.

"You know why." Illya didn't elaborate.

Another pause, which widened into a gaping chasm between them. Illya struggled to find something to say, and could think of nothing. It was Solo who broke this quiet.

"Mark told me how you were, every time he visited. Funnily enough, April hardly ever talked about you. Maybe she was more hurt by your leaving than anyone," Solo said, a grim attempt at humour.

"No, I don't think she was."

"No," Solo agreed without argument.

More silence.

Illya began to feel a seldom-experienced panic welling up from within him. Too much time had passed. They meant nothing to each other. There could be nothing between them. It was over.

The thousand romantic notions that he'd harboured for the last ten years, thoughts that he'd only allowed himself in the middle of the darkest night when there was no one else to share them, began to shatter one by one.

Ever practical, he welcomed their destruction. He had never lived on illusion, had never had that luxury. Better to face the truth.

After ten years of absence, there could be nothing more between them.

As if sensing his thoughts, Napoleon awkwardly stood up, his natural grace temporarily deserting him. In his haste, he nearly knocked over the untouched glass of vodka.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have come."

He moved towards the foyer, the door. He moved back out of Illya's life.

The panic bloomed fully within Illya.

It couldn't end like this. His fantasies about this meeting resurrected themselves and practicality be damned.

He rose himself and followed, grabbing Solo's arm just as he had started to open the door. 

"Napoleon, why did you come?" He heard his own voice shake and cursed his weakness.

Solo didn't reply right away, but shook his head, his face hidden from view. When he did speak, Illya almost wished he hadn't.

"Chris Spicer died this week. You must remember Chris?" Illya nodded, picturing the lively young woman who had been in the first wave of female agents after April proved her worth. "She was on a routine observation mission and Thrush caught her and tortured her and killed her. Her partner found the body. I don't think he'll ever recover enough to work in Enforcement again." Solo paused for a moment and swallowed hard before continuing. "I had to call April in London to tell her. I didn't want her to find out from the Command grapevine or through the weekly reports."

Napoleon stopped again and finally turned to meet Illya's eyes.

"There's been too much death, too much loss. I had to see you again before I lost any more of myself."

Illya struggled to find the right words, but there were none for this situation, nothing he could say.

They stood frozen in a horrible tableau, neither able to act or break the connection between them.

It was Illya who found the strength, somehow, to break their paralysis.

He tightened his grip on Napoleon's arm and pulled him into a rough embrace. He could feel the other man tremble in his grasp, and nearly laughed hysterically at the thought of Napoleon Solo being that afraid of anything. The thought somehow gave him further courage. He leaned towards Napoleon's face and kissed him.

The kiss was like throwing gasoline on a bonfire.

They came alive in each other's arms. Illya tightened his arms, as if he could merge them into one person. He drank in the heat of Napoleon's mouth, revelling in the feel of the other man's tongue against his. He noted the feel of Napoleon's swollen cock and felt his own harden in response.

He was swept by a hunger that wasn't rational, but sprang from somewhere deep within him and wouldn't be denied.

"Upstairs," he whispered. Napoleon nodded in mute assent. By some miracle, they made their way to the bedroom. 

There was no finesse involved in the act. Clothing was stripped off and left in a tangled mess on the floor. Illya pushed Napoleon onto the bed and followed him. Within moments the sheets were snarled around them, but that didn't matter.

Their mouths met again in their blind drive to merge together. One of them moaned, but Illya couldn't have said who it was. The boundaries between them wavered and dissolved.

Orgasm swept him with an intensity that made his back arch, his fingernails dig into Napoleon's flesh. That pain seemed to take Napoleon over the edge and he too was engulfed by the pleasure, burying his mouth in Illya's shoulder.

They lay quiescent in each other's arms, until the longing flared again, brilliant and undeniable. Again they took each other to the brink and beyond. And always they ended entwined together.

It couldn't go on forever. They were neither of them young. Not like they had been.

A final kiss, and Napoleon dropped into a deep sleep. Illya felt himself falling into the same state. Struggling, he managed to pull the covers up around them, and then enfolded his partner in his arms.

Feeling sated as he hadn't in years, Illya Kuryakin slept.

* * *

Illya woke up feeling completely content.

He was not alone.

Napoleon had wrapped an arm around his middle, his head on Illya's chest. It was achingly familiar. Every day they had been together, Illya had woken up exactly like this, with Napoleon's warmth comforting him. He ruffled his fingers through his partner's -- ex-partner's, he reminded himself -- hair, enjoying the sensation, and marvelling at the grey that had appeared there. He shouldn't have been surprised. He had seen the signs of age appear on his own body over the last ten years: the lines on his face, the softening of his muscles. But he always remembered Napoleon as he had last seen him, not young, but still strong and confident.

Now the confidence had a maturity that suited Napoleon well and the strength might have mellowed, but was tempered with experience.

Illya stroked the shoulder of the man in his arms, savouring the feeling of skin against skin and memorizing the moment.

He knew it couldn't last. Last night they had been swept away by a passion that would not be allowed to exist in the real world. And the real world was the one that they both must live in.

He was almost sorry when Napoleon finally began to awaken, stirring slightly, eyelids fluttering.

With a huge sigh and a stretch, Napoleon rolled onto his back and opened his eyes wide, looking over at Illya.

"Good morning," Napoleon said with a wide smile. Then he bent over and kissed him. 

It was almost too much to bear. The sex last night had been more than a little frenzied, out of control. There had been gentleness, but there had mostly been raw need. But this kiss had all the warmth and fondness and love that Illya had not experienced since his last night in New York ten years ago.

It was too much to bear.

Illya pulled away from the kiss, rolling onto his side, facing away from Napoleon. He felt the need to hide his feelings, and he knew his face would show them too completely now.

Napoleon put a hand on his shoulder.

"Illya..."

"Don't, Napoleon." The words came out sharper than he'd meant.

The hand was removed from his shoulder. He felt Napoleon roll away from him, a gap opening up between them that spoke of a wider gap between them emotionally.

"I'm sorry, Illya." The mattress springs creaked as Napoleon shifted beside him. 

"Not as sorry as I," Illya whispered.

"What?"

"Nothing. Isn't it time you were going?" Illya assumed the mantle of the Ice Prince. He hadn't felt the need for this act for some time, outside of the odd faculty meeting, and he was surprised at how easy it was to assume.

"You don't mean that." He tried to ignore the hurt in Napoleon's voice.

"But I do. I think you should leave."

"I thought..." Napoleon cut himself off abruptly. "Never mind."

Illya let his frustration speak for him. "You thought what? That last night made all the difference? That we could go back as we were? That we could live happily ever after? We can't Napoleon. Ten years might have passed, but everything is much as it was. We can't be together, then or now."

"Things have changed. We can be together." A hand was placed back on his shoulder. "That's why I've come: to bring you back."

Illya froze at Napoleon's touch and his words. Anger bloomed in his mind, warring with a hope that appeared unexpectedly along side it. 

"You think it's as easy as that. You can appear and claim me. You can be with me and maintain your position."

"It's that easy, if you want it to be." There was something of the old cockiness in Napoleon's voice that Illya found both reassuring and infuriating. "There's no one to stop us now. The last of the old continental chiefs is gone. I'm the most senior member of Section One now. The other chiefs have other things to worry about besides who I'm sleeping with. They've said as much to me themselves. There's no one to stop us, Illyusha."

Illya ignored the endearment, drawing on his anger.

"I have a life here, Napoleon. You can't expect me to abandon it just because you ask."

"You abandoned your life ten years ago. I'm asking you to reclaim it."

Illya felt a sharp pain at that unexpected jab. He allowed the pain to fuel his anger higher. "You arrogant..." 

"Arrogant," Napoleon interrupted him, his voice revealing his own anger. "That's rich, coming from you. You were the one who was arrogant enough to decide what was best for the both of us ten years ago."

"That was different. I was doing the right thing."

"What you thought was the right thing. You never even asked my opinion. And besides," Napoleon tightened his grip and drew Illya back to face him "this is the right thing. We belong together."

Illya felt something crack within him, a painful and yet strangely welcome sensation.

"Polya." The old diminutive slipped out naturally, before he could stop it. And that one slip was his undoing, or perhaps his salvation. That simple name opened a breach in his defences that crumbled them to dust.

He gathered Napoleon into his arms, enjoying the feel of their bodies joined together. He ignored as irrelevant the moisture trailing down his cheeks. After all, Illya Nickovetch Kuryakin did not cry.

They lay like that for a long time, arms holding tight, legs entwined. Napoleon's touch seemed to heal years of hurt. Anger, frustration and loneliness all vanished in the face of the love that still, somehow, existed between them.

It was a heady feeling.

But love hadn't changed the person Illya was. Which meant that he was still practical and independent.

"I won't be a kept man, Napoleon. What am I supposed to do in New York while you are off running U.N.C.L.E.?"

"What you were always meant to do." Napoleon smirked at him in an entirely too self-satisfied way.

"Don't be cryptic. Remember, I still haven't agreed to your scheme."

"Your agreement is just a formality. Ow," Napoleon said sharply, rubbing his posterior. "No pinching."

"You were being too smug. What was I meant to do?

"My head of Research is taking a university job, which means that the position will be open for you. You can poke around in labs to your heart's content, and occasionally help me out with running the organization. It'll be perfect." Napoleon positively beamed, wearing the widest smile that Illya had ever seen.

Illya tried to find his usual sarcasm in the face of such happiness and found it missing.

"Yes, it will be perfect."

**Author's Note:**

> Previously published in Relative Secrecy 3.


End file.
